


The China Files

by HappyLeech



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse), Resident Evil - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-14
Updated: 2013-02-14
Packaged: 2017-11-29 05:32:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/683405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HappyLeech/pseuds/HappyLeech
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherry gets her first mission: Locate and extract Jake Muller. It should have been easy, but when has it ever been?<br/>(An experiment in second person)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The China Files

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I wrote this 95% from memory, and I didn't go into detail in a few places (Because i didn't want to/because I found the areas to be tedious and didn't feel like writing out how tedious it was.)

It’s your first mission, first real mission outside of the States, and you are practically freaking out, sitting on the plane by yourself on your way to a war zone.

(You don’t really count the three ‘test’ missions [Derek? The Director? Simmons?] Director Simmons sent you as real missions because you always had someone with you. This time you are completely alone.)

Getting off in neighboring Estonia, you quickly and quietly cross over into Edonia, your badge working exactly the way you were told it would. Even finding Mr. Muller was relatively easy. 

(Even though you messed up and called him Jake the first time you spoke. Very unprofessional.)

You had his relative location, milked out of an informant by another agent, and all you had to do was find the area with the heaviest fighting, and there he was. 

(You knew there was going to be danger getting him out of the country, but you didn’t expect to encounter the C-Virus right out of the gate.)

It’s slightly awkward, your first meeting, made worse by the fact that there are J’avo heading your way, and when Jake goes down the garbage shoot, you know you have no choice but to follow after him. 

It seems like he doesn’t want anything to do with you, by the way he dismisses your badge and introduction, but you follow after him, sticking with him through bullets and RPG’s until you find yourselves in a tiny, but momentarily safe, building.

“$200,000 up front, another $200,000 when this is over. Oh, and BOW’s? Those are extra. An additional grand. Each.” Jake started to speak, and, with a start, you realize that he thinks you want to hire him.

“Jake, I don’t want to hire you,” You say, and he looks startled, disappointed almost. “I’ve been sent by the United States government to get you. We need you, we need your blood.”  
You quickly explain everything, and Jake takes it relatively well, you think, and you start moving again.

(You don’t tell him that his request for 50 million per pint of blood would probably be denied. You’re just happy you got him to come with you.)

As you start moving, heading to your rendezvous, you start to realize that this mission is going to get harder, and not just because of the fact that most of the people in the city are either B.S.A.A or infected with the C-Virus.

You’re getting close to the edge of the city when something cries out from behind you. For a moment, you flashback, thinking of the monster that chased you throughout Raccoon, your father. But then you don’t have time to reminisce, because the screaming thing just survived an explosion and is running after you.

You both run as the monster lopes after you, and you barely realize when you jump off the walkway. You hit scaffolding and roll, before reaching the end of that and grabbing for a rope.

You yell for Jake, unable to see where he is, if he jumped too, and then something hits you, grabbing you as you fall and smash through a window.

It was Jake, and as you stand, the monster rams against the walls, but it’s unable to climb inside after you. It screams once more before dropping away, and you find yourself shaking.

“What the hell was that? Jake yells, and you quickly tell him that it’s a seeker sent to collect him and his blood, while you look around, wondering where it was the monster chased you to. 

(The informant had mentioned that something was getting ready to be sent after Jake, but you didn’t think you’d run into it right away.)

(You wish it had just been something he had made up to scare you, to freak out the 'new girl'.)

You don’t have any idea where you are, so you wander until you find yourself in a crumbling warehouse. While exploring you find the corpse of a man, clutching a magnum, and you feel guilty when you take it.

You don’t feel guilty when the monster appears again as you try to leave. It explodes through the ceiling and sends you both flying. As you pull yourself up off the floor, it starts running towards you dragging its metal claw on the ground.

You and Jake split, he goes up and you stay down, gripping the magnum with both hands and shooting into the things face. After three slugs to the face, you realize that nothing is happening, and drop to the floor as it swings at you.

You run back, switching to your handgun, and start shooting at gasoline barrels that littered the ground floor. Above you, Jake is busy with his former comrades, and you’re stuck below, being chased by the monster. Eventually Jake's shots join you own, and the monster falls against a support beam, ending up buried under a large piece of roof.

You both take a moment to breath, before falling through the floor into the basement. It’s dark and creepy, and you wind your way around stacks of mannequins as Jake mutters about knife wounds and the monster. You see sunlight ahead, and you both run out of the crumbling building and into the sights of the B.S.A.A and Chris Redfield. You know of him from Claire, and you can tell that he recognizes you too, even though you’ve never met before.

You also know that Jake’s a wanted insurgent, so you flash them your badge right away, hoping that they won’t bring it up. Unfortunately, one of Chris’ men recognizes Jake, and tries to start something, with Jake egging him on. Luckily, or maybe not, the situation is defused when something large climbs over a roof and roars at the group. 

You immediately offer to assist Chris’ group, and boy, are you glad you did. Jake complains about helping the ‘jar-heads’, but after the things are dead, after another one shows up and is killed by air bombing, Chris arranges for a helicopter ride.

(It’s a relief. You don’t think you could stand trying to keep Jake from starting a fight with Chris’ men if you had stayed on the ground.)

You thank Chris, and follow Jake onto the mostly empty helicopter, preparing yourself for an entirely awkward ride to the rendezvous point. Before that expected silence though, you check in with Director Simmons, knowing that you will be later than expected to the check in. You also make sure to ask about Jake’s ludicrous demand, and are surprised when he agrees to the amount.

(The director had always been known for being stingy, so you were quite amazed that he agreed to the number.)

(They must have really wanted Jake.)

You inform Jake that his demands have been met, and he smirks, before tearing off the patch that identifies him as a member of the mercenary group. Then, he starts asking you about Chris, which confuses you, but he then drops the subject, and the vehicle descends into a tense silence.

The silence is broken when the ‘copter shakes and rolls, and you turn and look out the window in to the face of the monster.

You, Jake, and the co-pilot start shooting as the walls of the vehicle fall away, and as it starts going down, the co-pilot tells you and Jake to jump to the other one.

You make it across okay, but you have to haul Jake up, the crashing helicopter falling so fast he almost didn’t make it. You pull him up then look around, realizing that this one was made for combat, with two gun turrets at the back. 

You both rush over and take command of one, and as you aim at the attack choppers and Jake the monstrosity, you begin to wonder what you’re going to do. 

Burying that thing in rubble didn’t seem to damage it, so you don’t think that the guns are going to do much. You still try, determined to take it out, like how Leon had finally…dispatched your father.

(You made Claire sit down and tell you exactly what happened that day in Raccoon when you turned twenty, and then spent three hours sitting with her, sobbing into her shoulder. You knew your parents weren’t good people, but you didn’t expect what she had to say.)

But, even after slamming hundreds of bullets into it, even after destroying the choppers, it’s still alive, and now it’s in ‘copter with you. It starts to tilt, because it’s crashing and because the monster must weight a ton, and you start to slide.

You brace yourself, and see an opportunity when a propane tank starts to slide away. You don’t bother telling Jake what you’re about to do, you don’t have time, and just shoot.   
The blast knocks the monster away, down into the snowy mountains, but you also find yourself clinging to the edge of the copter. You don’t look down, knowing your grip would loosen if you did, and you see that Jake is also hanging on for dear life. 

(You wondered, later, if you’d be able to fix yourself if you fell from that height. Then you shake the thought from your mind, focusing on something more important. Like escaping China.)

“Hold on!” He yells to you, and before you can ask why, he grabs a falling parachute and pulls you away from the copter. You grab onto his jacket tightly as you fall, as he struggles into the parachute. He’s about to pull the chord, and you lace your fingers through his belt loops, preparing for the jerk.

It comes, and you’re sure you’ve broken a few fingers and dislocated your shoulder, but you’re still holding on to Jake as you descend. And if that wasn’t worse enough, behind you, you hear the helicopter explode, sending shrapnel your way.

You don’t remember much after that.

When you wake up again, you feel nothing but an intense pain in you back. You pass out again, and don’t fully wake until Jake stirs. 

(You feel slightly guilty for landing on him, but there’s not much you could have done about it.)

You hear him exhale in shock, and wake as he moves out from under you. You also hear him muttering…something, before opening your eyes. You look towards him, and there’s an odd look in his eyes. After a moment, you’re able to process that it’s fear, and that’s when the pain hits you full force. 

You plead with him to remove…whatever it is that your body is trying to heal itself around, and at first he’s reluctant. You don’t blame him. If you were anyone but your father’s daughter, you’d die. Hell, you’d probably already be dead. But Jake finally gets it that you’re serious, and pulls it out, a hunk of metal that was buried about 3 inches in your back. Any internal injuries, not to mention your broken fingers and dislocated shoulder must have been dealt with while you were both down for the count, you think, before looking up into his horrified face.

“What the hell was that!?” Jake asks you, a touch of hysteria in his voice, and you close your eyes, trying to think of a reply. You can’t think of a suitable one, so you open your eyes and say, “It’s a long story.”

It’s not good enough, and he snarls at you, “Well, maybe they should be testing your blood!”, and it hurts more than you expected. 

(You, for a moment, feel like telling him exactly how much time the spent testing your blood, your body, but then you realize that that would only dissuade Jake from coming with you.)

You push back tears, reply, and try to distract yourself by looking for the four flash-drives you had with you. They’re not on you, but one is close by. You explain to Jake that you need to find them, and he grunts and follows after you. Luckily there's a locator beacon in each of the drives, and you’re able to track them down, even with the added dangers of the J’avo on snowmobiles and strange cocoons that hatch bird-like monsters. 

Jake had spotted a cabin soon after the start of looking for the drives, and you hurry back there after grabbing the rest of the drives. He starts a fire as soon as you’re both inside and the door is securely shut, and its then that you realize how cold you were. Standing near the fire, you watch as bunches of ice fall off your coat and boots, leaving a deep puddle behind. 

The cabin soon fills with an even more awkward silence than the copter, and you, stupidly, think to go out to look for help. Jake grabs you before you can get outside, but you still manage to chill the cabin. You pace a bit more, before giving up and sitting against the wall, close to the fire. You don’t know how long you sit there alone, when Jake suddenly joins you. 

You were sure he’d try and keep away from you after seeing you heal up like you did, but instead you start talking. You start telling him about, well, a lot of things, your virus-riddled body, Raccoon, and Claire and Leon. You’re not sure why you tell him, maybe because he’s kind of like you, with his altered blood, but it feels good to tell someone.

(Director Simmons, while your legal guardian for years, didn’t care much for talk. Or even seeing you. If not for a scientist or doctor telling you he was your defacto-parent, you probably would never have known.)

He’s quiet as you talk, and you lean back to the wall when you finish. Jake opens his mouth to speak, but stops, tensing, before pushing you to the floor. 

You’re confused at first, wondering what the hell he thinks he’s doing, and slightly bushing at the same time, when bullets start flying. He rolls off of you and you stand, brushing yourself off and drawing your gun, taking aim at the people outside. 

There’s about twenty of them, and as you start dropping them like flies, one of the walls explodes, creating a disastrous shockwave. As the mooks rush inside to get at you and Jake, you both run out, hearing the ominous rumbling coming from the mountain. 

The previous owns of the cabin were generous enough to leave two gassed up and working snowmobiles for you, and you both hop on one, hoping to outrun the avalanche. You speed through trees and over bumps, against cliffs and across disintegrating glaciers, before crashing. 

(You can help but laugh hysterically and agree with Jake when he says it’s a bad idea, going through the glacier, but once you’re in, you can only go one way. Out.)

You bounce and skid into a cave system and mine, littered with icy floors that sound like breaking glass when you walk. At first you don’t think that’s a big deal, but that’s before you realize that the monster is in there with you.

You see it, with a drill arm attached, kill a man as he prowls the main area, standing right next to the door. He has spies, to alert him if anyone, like, say, you or Jake, are near, and you quickly and silently remove them. 

(You end up sharing an empty dumpster more than once, and hide behind a dumpster too, after making a tad too much noise moving it. Luckily the thing seemed to be blind, so you were safe.)

You both eventually make it down to the main area, only to discover that the exit door, the mine entrance, is locked and requires a key card. It doesn’t take long for you to figure out that the corpse of the man killed has it in its hand, and you have Jake boost you up and create a distraction so you can retrieve it.

Everything was going well until you used the card. 

The door beeped, and the monster charged. It then became a race, seeing who could open the doors first, until you saw something glorious ahead. 

An old drill is sitting there, and as the monster bursts through the last door, you turn it on and press the gas petal. It inches forwards until it collides with the monster, and you find yourself fighting for control, trying to push the monster back. It runs out of room though, and you will admit that you squealed with delight, just a little bit, as the drill digs into the monsters stomach.

With the drill dead, and the monster incapacitated, you both run for the light at the end of the tunnel. You can see your rendezvous point, a town out amidst the pristine snow, and feel hope rising, the idea that this stupid, dangerous mission would be done. 

(Looking back, you can’t believe that you thought it would be so easy.)

But it was not to be, and people started to appear, guns loaded and aimed at you both. You begin to shoot, before turning as you hear something.

You don’t have time to react as the thing appears, as it swings its drill arm into you. The last thing you remember for a long time is the sensation of flying through the air, and the dismayed noise Jake made as he watched you get hit.

(You’re just glad that the drill was off, damaged, when it hit you.)

\--

China is different, but at the same time, not so different. Whoever it is who has you is interested in your abilities, and so many of the tests are the same as what you went through while you were in ‘government care’. You try not to make noise, try not to show that you’re hurting, but it’s hard sometimes. 

Your room is next to some kind of lab set-up, and so when the lights suddenly go out, you’re not surprised that someone comes in to check.

(You’d assume they were checking on you, but then you’d be flattering yourself. They may be interested in your blood but they’re definitely not interested in you.)

You take advantage of the darkness to hide, and the investigator runs into your cell. You spring up behind him and take him down, actually cracking the glass with his skull before picking up his electric baton. Creeping through the hallways, you find yourself in a locker room, and, hearing someone, hide yourself in a locker. You’re positioned perfectly to read he door code when one of the men inputs it, and you slip through the door into another room. 

You find yourself face to face with four men, but before they, or you, can do anything, the remote-controlled gun on the security camera activates and takes them all down.  
You beam and wave at the camera, knowing now, for sure, that Jake is there with you, before going through another encoded door. 

It leads to a secret door, hidden in a locker. You rush out, hoping to find a change of clothes, when Jake drops down from a vent in the ceiling. You turn to him, happy to see him, when he turns away, flushed, and you realized how…risqué your hospital gown was. You gasp, cover yourself, and open a locker so the door hides you.

“Ah, sorry…” He says, shielding his eyes, and you also look away, before noticing what was in the locker you opened. Your things are inside, and you both presided to get changed.

(You don’t have time for modesty, not when there’s a chance that someone could come in the room and attack.)

(You do wonder why your things were being kept in that room though. It was almost like the person who’d captured you wanted you to escape and find your weapons.)

As you’re putting the finishing touches on, and gathering your weapons, Jake starts talking about his father, before asking if you knew him. You pause before saying you didn’t, even though you remember the tense dinners, your father and Wesker, sitting there talking about something while your mother beamed and you cowered.

(You finished your vegetables on those nights, before running to hide in your room. Wesker had always scared you.)

He notices your pause though, and your heart sinks as he starts to argue and complain. Finally, he stands and turns to you, and says “Do you really think that nothing of who my father was got passed on to me? You of all people should know that’s true.”

He’s managed to hurt you again, so you shoot back something about taking responsibility and not blaming others, before storming out of the room. He doesn’t follow right away, so you take the time to try and calm yourself down. When he does come out after you, you’ve already started to shoot the J’avos, taking out your annoyance on them. 

(Jake quietly joins you, and you get the feeling that he’s realized that what he said to you was not right. You just would rather he apologize.)

The lab gives way to an opulent mansion, and you silently marvel at the beautiful rooms as you run through, shooting at anything that moves. Some of the things that die, and crystalize into a cocoon, which spawn lizard creatures that shoot spikes at you. They die as easy as your human-shaped opponents though. 

When you reach the main room, there’s a giant statue of the Buddha, with an inscription that Jake reads out loud. You both then race back, trying to see if, in the ash of the men you killed, there are any strange discs.

(One thing you did remember from Raccoon was helping Claire with the puzzles, so it was all par for the course for you.)

You both manage to find enough medallions to open the east wing and you rush in to the communications room, anxious to tell Director Simmons that you’re both still alive.  
Jake is less excited to report his being alive-ness, but he does poke around and finds your phones sitting in a drawer.

(You check to see if you have any messages. You don’t.)

You quickly dig into the computer files, and find almost all of the data collected on you and Jake throughout your six month stay, and download it to a memory card. You know they could care less about your data, but maybe you can get away with just bringing Jakes blood and the card home, instead of dragging him to the States for more tests, more pain.

Getting out proves to be a problem when a tank crashes through the door and aims right at you. You both manage to get away, before falling through the floor and trying to escape through a tight underground passage that lead to a beautiful garden.

You distract the tank, and the hostiles, as Jake tries to figure a way out of your predicament, and before you know it, Jakes’ riding out on a bright red motorcycle. You don’t question him, and jump on as he faces off with the tank.

Somehow you manage to escape mostly unscathed, and as Jake speeds down the suspiciously empty road, you contact Director Simmons. You convince yourself that he’s delighted to hear from you, and are surprised to hear that not only is he in China, he’s in the same city as you. He sends you the coordinates, and off you go.

Or you would, if it wasn’t for the combat helicopter that shows up and starts shooting. 

Jake yells for you to hold on and you grab tight as he starts whipping through the streets, finding yourself in streets crowded with rubble and cars. You turn back and shoot out the tires of bicycle pursuers, sending them crashing into each other.

It was all going moderately well, until Jake jumped the bike, and you ended up hanging from the guardrail of the helicopter, being flung around, barely able to hold on. You screw your eyes shut, hearing Jake yelling at you to “Hold on damnit! I’m coming!” before you lose your grip.

You fall and Jake catches you, and you’re thankful. You didn’t want to see how long it’d really take to fix yourself after a fall, even one that small, and you’re breathless when you climb back onto the bike.

You speed off again, dodging blockades and, for some reason, a car carrier which crashes and unleashes exploding junkers on you. But Jake does a good job of keeping you both on the road, until you absolutely have to crash. The bike explodes and you both roll, hitting the ground hard.

(It doesn’t really hurt you though. Thanks to the government, you know what you can take and still function. And also what you can take and just barely survive.)

You stand, disorientated, as the chopper sweeps into position, ready to fire on you. As you’re watching it, you notice Chris, higher up.

Jake starts to mutter, but the arrival of twenty or so J’avo takes up your attention. You doge bullets flying from the copter, although several do hit, and concentrate on shooting the foot soldiers. 

Eventually, they’re all killed, and the chopper pulls back. It gives you a chance to breathe, and you look at Chris as he and his men leave. 

You’re glad. If anyone told Jake about Wesker, then they might have told him who killed his father. It turns out that you needn’t worry, as Jake asks you if it was possible that Chris knew his father. You reply that you don’t know and that your orders are to avoid contact with anyone, and Jake runs off to knock down a ladder for you.

The helicopter is back when you go through the door, but it seems to be targeting Chris and his men. Jake still shimmies up a rope while you hold off the mutated J’avo, and shoots the helicopter pilot in the face, before jumping back down to you as the copter crashes. 

Moving through the streets is a mess of infected and hostile J’avos, until the plane crashes.

Rushing towards the impact, you and Jake run into a mess of fire and twisted metal, and Leon.

You have no idea who the woman is whose with him, but you ignore your orders and rush to him, so happy to see him. Then you tell him who your supervisor is.

(You don’t want to, but you believe Leon when he tells you that Simmons was behind everything.)

Jake comes to your defence, pushing Leon away, and you scowl. You hiss at him, tell him that Leon isn’t just anyone when he sends your words back at you. You’re sure you could still have argued with him, when he saved you again, pulling you down as a plane engine flies past you, a hairs width away from taking your head off. 

Jake rolls off you and pulls you up, just as the woman with Leon shouts to look at the plane, and Jake's stalker appears.

Leon looks calm as he joins you in aiming at it as it jumps down, and you glare at it, annoyed and hoping the four of you can take it down.  
The best you can do is chase it away for a time, and you yell to Leon the location where you’re meeting Simmons as a fire rages.

(You are secretly pleased that you were able to get the bus moving. You know Leon connected the wires, but it was your first time behind the wheel of a vehicle that wasn’t a snowmobile.)

Now jogging through the streets, trying to find another way to your rendezvous point, you try to ignore some of Jake’s anti-American talk, focusing on the rampaging J’avo and mutated J’avo instead. 

(You are not happy, being chased by something with a chainsaw hand.)

You eventually find your way to the docks, and as you go to jump onto a barge the chainsaw thing returns. You prepare to take up the defensive, when someone else shoots it, its head exploding and crumpling to the ground.

You only take the time to look for the shooter after clambering onto the barge, Jake driving it while you stand by the edge, scanning the rooftops. You didn’t see anyone, and before long the barge is stuck up against a half sunk restaurant and you’re both forced to climb onto the roof. 

You jog towards the other side, looking for another barge, when the Chainsaw J’avo returns, half its head missing, but that not slowing it down. As you and Jake try to avoid the chainsaw and the normal J’avo, the person who’d shot the chainsaw one before starts shooting again.

With their help, whoever they are, the chainsaw thing splashes into the water after falling against a neon sign, and you and Jake jump onto another barge. Jake takes control of it again, steering around collapsing metal towers and half sunken boats, until the thing appears again, jumping on the barge and swinging at you. You and Jake doge and shoot, until a load of girders falls on it, sending it to the bottom of the harbor.

(You begin to wonder who exactly it is who’s helping you, but you can’t think of anyone who would benefit from you being alive. Jake, yes, but you? No.)

Jake docks the barge and hops off, but before you can get off too, the chainsaw thing returns, sending you, the barge, and the J’avo away from the dock and towards a crashed helicopter. You find yourself forced closer and closer to the spinning blades, until the thing goes to swing at you and someone grabs you.

As whoever had you swings away from the helicopter and towards Jake, you see the J’avo minced by the helicopter blades before you’re dropped into Jake's arms.

(You really wanted to know who it was now, but they had disappeared when you got a chance to look up.)

(You know it was a woman though, you could smell her perfume, and she tutted at you as you flew over the harbour.)

Jake sets you down, and as you climb up the ladder to the rendezvous, your heart feels like a lead ball You stop Jake, and make him promise that if anything happens, after meeting with Simmons, that he will run. 

(Jake is too important to the world.)

(To you.)

(You just don’t say it.)

Of course, when you go inside, Leon was right, him and the woman pointing their guns at Simmons, who just smirks. You yell to him, asking if what Leon was saying was true, and Simmons scowls and his men open fire on you. Jake grabs you, and you move to the side, before Leon tells you both to go.

You pass over the information you got from the computer, Jake’s information, before you run to the side. You pass through a side door, and find yourself surrounded. You yell for Jake to go, but he refuses.

(You were really really angry with him then.)

You start to shoot at the J’avo, before two of them mutate and grab you and start to drag you away. You scream to Jake, mostly because you want him to get out of there, but instead he starts fighting back, trying to reach you.

As hard as you strain to get away, yelling for Jake to go, you are both defeated and knocked unconscious, the multiple J’avo dragging you down. 

\--

When you wake up again, you are damp and you can taste the sea water in the air. You’re also strapped in, suspended in the air. Until he speaks, you didn’t even know that Jake was there with you, and your first thought is to apologize to him, for trusting Simmons.

“Hey, it’s not your fault, right? You were just following orders.” He replies, but you still feel horrible.

(You’ve wondered if everyone you put your trust in will betray you eventually, but then you think of Claire and Leon and now Jake and try to think of happier things.)

(They would never…right?)

Your arms start to ache, and you shift, trying to relieve the pressure, when something clicks, an alarm sounds, and suddenly you’re both free. 

You take Jake’s hand, let him pull you up, and you pat yourself down. Of course they’ve taken your weapons. 

(You see them outside, and for a minute think that you’re going to be stuck in the tiny room until someone comes across you. Then Jake points at an air vent and you’re glad you didn’t say that out loud.)

He hoists you up, and you make your way through the cramped air vent. You suppose it’s good then that people aren’t really meant to travel in them. Until the…thing swipes at you and you knock a part of the vent loose. 

You land hard on your back, but don’t have time to complain when the thing falls down after you.

Jake yells for you to shoot the lock on the door as you dive for your weapons, but you ignore him for a moment as another thing crawls out of the floor. You make sure that neither of the things are going to grab for you, before shooting the lock and letting Jake out. He’s quick to grab his weapons, before you both high-tail it out of there.

You find an elevator, just what you need, but, as Jake complains, there’s no power, and you need to activate the batteries. There’s one near you, and as you pull the lever, a door across opens, revealing some kind of circular room, filled with heat coming up from the lava pit below. With a look back at the elevator, you both jump on to the rotating platform, and let yourselves be carried up.

Finding the rest of the batteries is reasonably easy, even with the detachable body part monsters and the tense moment when one of the overloads the system, causing everything in that area to start falling apart. 

You dive out of the area, a split second before the two discs slam down. You stumble into the elevator, and settle in for a ride up.

It stops much too soon, and you realize that your hope for a quick elevator ride to the surface and freedom was for naught.

You step out, and come face to face with Chris Redfield and his companion. 

(You never did learn his name, not until later, on the helicopter ride away from the sinking death trap of an oil rig.)

Again, your hopes are dashed for a quick getaway, when Chris comes out and says it.

“I can see your father in you.”

And things quickly sour. Jake is pointing his gun at Chris, the man with Chris is pointing a rifle at Jake, and Chris is doing nothing. You try to talk Jake down, shooting anxious looks at the three men, but they all ignore you.

(It made you so mad, and you almost considered pulling your gun on all of them. Maybe then they’d shut up and listen.)

It gets even more tense when Jake shoots, scraping Chris’ face, before he puts his gun away and walks off towards a console. Chris’ companion doesn’t lower his weapon until you glare at him and follow after Jake.

The room you’re in has two elevators, and you look over Jake’s shoulder as a graph shows the spread of something, the C-Virus you assume, over the world. It give the estimated time needed to destroy everything as three days, and your heart stops.

“What is it?” The other man asks, and you reply that it’s the end of the world, before slamming your hand down on a button that activates the lifts. You all need to get out of there.  
Somehow you end up on a lift with the other man, and although you can hear Chris and Jake trading barbs, you barely talk to him. 

(He does tell you that working with Chris has been trying, and you think you agree. Claire said her brother could be a hard-headed jerk sometimes, and the man looked like he’d been put through the wringer.)

You reach the top and switch with Chris, jumping across, when something in the giant cocoon that was hanging in the middle shifts, then hatches. Jake pulls you away from the edge, and despite wanting to stay and help, he drags you away, letting a door close and separating you from the others.

(You were so angry, angry even after destroying his personal monster, but after seeing Chris again, you’re glad you left.)

(It could have been Jake that was lost.)

(Or you.)

You reload and dash to the next door, hearing the screeching of twisting metal behind you, and walk out into a pool of lava.

The heat hits you hard, and for a moment you’re glad that you’re already a sweaty, disgusting mess. You jump down onto the next level of walkway, and then something walks out of a doorway behind you. 

Of course it’s Jake’s personal monster, and this time it has a new hand. It’s a spiked ball on a chain, and you are a split second to late realizing that it’s swinging at you. Jake is quicker and he pushes you back, the chain missing you both, but puncturing a hole in one of the pipes moving the liquid fire.

You both start to run, trying to avoid getting hit, looking for somewhere more stable to take up the defensive. 

You run along the now collapsing walk way, and meet up at an inconveniently located rubbish bin. You push it off the walkway, before jumping as the ball slams down. You hit a different, but more sturdy piece of walkway, and start shooting. 

(You spy an exit, but you’re not sure how to get there from where you are, and you don’t exactly want that thing to follow you out.)

After a while, the walkway can’t hold up and it dumps you onto a concrete pad. The thing starts pounding holes in the ground, leading to lava splashing up on the pad, and you almost get hit when you run to shove Jake out of the way.

It finally stumbled, and then you act. You sprint towards the thing, pulling out your stun rod as you go, and pull yourself onto it’s back. You put the stun rod against its neck and hold on tight, even though the electricity is hurting you as well.

(Only after everything’s said and done, and you’re on your way back to dry land, do you notice the burns on your hands. You suppose that the damage was so severe, the amount of time you held onto the stun rod so long, that your body could only repair so much damaged flesh.)

(You don’t mind though.)

(It’s only your hands.)

Jake gets what you’re doing, and grabs the things artificial arm, and starts pulling. It takes some time, and you can smell burning flesh, but he manages to separate the things arm from its body.

It roars and tosses you off, flinging you up high and away from Jake, before it charges him. You climb a ladder to get even higher, and see that Jake is now fist fighting with the monster. Your gun was knocked away when it flung you, so you can’t even offer any assistance.

Until you notice the transport system. You rush over and load a box on, before lining the track up with where the thing is. It takes some time before the monster is in the right place, but when it is, you push the button and watch it fall to one knee. 

Jake then moves in, finishing the deal and sending it flying into the lava. For a moment you think that it’s going to swim over and climb back up, like Mr. X back in Raccoon, but something from the ceiling falls right on top of it, and you sigh in relief. 

Jake joins you, climbing a ladder, and you realize that you’re right next to the door you were looking at when you entered the room. You give an exhausted smile to Jake, and you both open the door and step through. It led to a supply room, and after snooping around, you find a thermal transport. 

You hop on, and you both pull the levers at the same time. 

(If you’d know the thing would move so fast, you would have tried to hook yourself to the front before pulling the levers.)

It starts moving and you are both flung back, but manage to grab a hold of the floor before you get flung back into the fireball that is propelling the platform. You look over at Jake, preparing to pull yourself forward so your feet don’t get singed, when you hear a roar and another platform hits yours. You and Jake both slip down a few more feet, before you start climbing.

That thing is back, and even uglier, and angrier, than before. 

(You preferred it when it looked like it was wearing the faces of other people.)

(As it is, it reminds you of Mr. X and you would rather it didn't. He gave you nightmares for years.)

You see a load of steel bar ahead, and you and Jake rush for them as the thing slowly climbs after you. You exchange looks before slamming your hands down on the release, not wanting to talk because of the speed. The bars fly back, pushing the thing further away, but it also only makes it more angry and determined to get to you. 

There is also a load of pipes on your skiff, and you move as fast as possible to it. You want this thing dead and gone before you reach the end of the ride to the top. It almost manages to grab you a few times, and you realize that swinging out of the way is much harder than expected on a platform moving as fast as it was.

(The first time you dodged, you feel like you’ve broken your arm. You only dislocated it.)

You eventually reach the pipes, and again you hit the release button. This time it was ready, and it grabs one of the pipes as it slams into its face. 

(Or where its face once was.)

It manages to propel itself to the head of the skiff, knocking boxes out of its way as it reached for Jake.

One of the boxes it sent fly must have been holding weapons, because after the debris stops flying you can both see a magnum stuck in the slatted floor. You turn to look at Jake before clambering towards the gun. You grab it before the monster could knock it away, and hold it up, aimed at the red pulsating thing sticking out of its chest that you can only assume is its heart.

Heat, speed, and fatigue seems to catch up with you then, and you find your hand wavering.

(You had to concentrate so hard so to not drop the gun or let go of the grating. It had been a hard six months and four days.)

(You just want to sleep for a few weeks.)

Jake reaches you, though, and wraps on of his hands around the gun too, and you find it easier to concentrate, and the gun stops moving. He looks at you, and growls.  
“This shit end. Now.”

You nod, and turn back to the thing. It raises its hand to hit you when you shoot. The power behind the bullet is enough to send it toppling, over your heads and back into the flames. You could cry, but you feel too tired to, and Jake lets go of your hand to look behind, to see if the thing was crawling back up after you.

You keep hold of the gun, just in case, and look up when Jake lays his hand over yours.

“You saved me, you know that right?”

“Thank you.”

You smile, too tired to respond, and he understands, squeezing your hand as you hurdle towards the end of the line.

The rest of your escape is hard to recall, a mad rush after the platform stops to the escape pods as you see water flooding areas of the oil rig you’re stuck in. You both slide into a sphere and bob to the top, where you hit the release hatch and wait for someone to pick you up.

(You got in touch with the agency again, this time Leon’s supervisor, Hunnigan. She’s quick to tell you that Leon and Helena, the woman he was with, have a helicopter and are on their way.)

(You’re so happy that you cry a little bit.)

(You’re pretty sure Jake does too.)

Everything gets hectic again after getting picked up. You tell Leon no more than twelve times that you refuse to take Jake back with you to the agency, and finally you commandeer a first aid tent and take 2 pints of Jake’s blood yourself. 

He does fly into the States with you, as far as Utah, before he splits. He has plans to get himself a bike, the ride in China was so fun evidently, and you finally exchange phone numbers. He says it’s so he know who to get in touch with to get his 50 million, but you get the feeling that’s not true anymore.

You’re sitting on the plane back to DC, finally writing up your exhausting report, your metal case with Jake's blood beside you and a cup of tea on your tray, when you get a text.

“’I lowered my asking price. $50- Jake’”

And you smile.

(You hated China; you never want to go back.)

(But you also found the greatest man there, so you’re not complaining.)

**Author's Note:**

> I had this posted to fanfic.net...but then they took it off because it violated rules.  
> I didn't know that 2nd person was such a horrible thing >:T


End file.
